“You are your biggest competitor,” Bob Davies told the Fastener Industry Summit.

Research shows humans are “avoidance machines,” consultant Davies of High Performance Training Inc.said. “We are genetically coded to avoid pain and seek comfort. Our brains are designed to recognize the highest level of perceived pain and then we are compelled both physiologically and psychologically to avoid that pain.”

Behavioral contracting has you answer such questions as, “What do I want? Why bother? What do I need to do to have what I want? What do I need to do this week to have what I want?”

As the brain moves on it creates a behavioral contract for another question: What will I do this week?

Davies advised those wanting to improve to start with accountability: “Did you do what you said you would do?”

Next an enforceable consequence for non-performance is needed. “There must be a consequence that your brain will hold as more painful then the pain associated with the activity you are committing to,” Davies said.

Apply to one small activity each week to see “great habits being developed and great results. One small action each week will add up,” Davies advised.

Davies used a sports example to show how small increases add up: The average major league baseball player earns $1 million by batting .250 or three hits every 12 times at bat. The super star hits .333 and is paid millions of dollars – Alex Rodriguez of the NY Yankees made $24 million last year. Yet the super star gets only one more hit every 12 times a bat.

“It’s the small changes, the small actions that produce the significant results,” Davies said.

He quoted Coach Vince Lombardi: “Inches make a champion.”

“You have far more capacity to create the circumstances and events in life then you are aware of,” Davies finds.

“Make weekly commitments to someone else with painful penalties for non performance until your old habits area stopped and your new habits are formed,” Davies advised. “Then you will have gone from unbearable, through uncomfortable, to unstoppable.” Web: BobDavies.com